Brother's Keeper
by TVJunkieTJ9
Summary: After Harry's stabbing in the season finale, Danny Nyland, his foster brother, comes to visit
1. Chapter1

Title: Brother's Keeper

By: Sarah

Disclaimer: The characters from Boston Public and Boston Public belong to David E. Kelly and Fox television. The characters from Chicago Hope and Chicago Hope belong to David E. Kelly and CBS television. I have no association with David E. Kelly, FOX, or CBS television. I am just writing this for entertainment purposes. No monetary or personal gain has been made by this work.

Lauren walked down the cold narrow hallway of the hospital. It was close to 11 at night, late she was aware but she wanted to do this alone, without distractions from anyone else. For all she knew, this would be the last time she would ever see him. 

Since her break up with Harry last year, she had not let herself get too close. He was not capable of giving her the relationship she longed for. A relationship where they knew all about each other, could trust each other, could confide in each other. He wasn't like that, he was determined to reveal as little about himself as possible, about his emotions, and his personal life.

At first she thought that she could cope with it, but as things progressed she realized that she didn't know him. No one knew him. He kept everything in. The only information she had about his family was that his father was doing 20 years in prison for armed robbery. She hadn't known that until one day when she was complaining about his lack of revelation. He gave her that detail about his life, in a matter of fact way, fiddling with a deck of playing cards, "my father's in prison, he is doing 20 years for armed robbery." She never learned anything more about it, such as what the circumstances were leading up to his arrest. He never told her anything about his mother, or the rest of his family. 

She entered the room, and found that she was not prepared for what she saw. Harry who was always full of life, was a solitary, lifeless figure, lying in a hospital bed. His left arm was threaded with intravenous tubes leading to what seemed to be a chandelier of medication hanging from a pole behind his bed. The room was silent, save the sound of cardiac monitor and the respirator protruding from his mouth. She approached him, and took his hand, which seemed limp and lifeless. Could he even hear her?

"Don't give up, I know you are stronger than this" she softly whispered to him. She wished she had more to say, remembering the afternoons they had spent together, the time they passionately kissed in the school infirmary, and were caught on tape by Cheryl Holt. For the past year she had tried her best to suppress those memories, but now she could no longer hold back. At a loss for words, she stood with him for five minutes, crying a tiny bit, wishing she had gotten to know him better. 

She exited the room. As she walked down the hall, she noticed Steven Harper, fast asleep on a row of waiting room chairs. She knew that he had been at the hospital ever since Harry had come out of surgery, and decided not to distract him. 

She then heard an extremely agitated voice yelling, "Its your fault. Do you realize what you have done? If you hadn't involved him in this god dam mess, he wouldn't be here right now. He would be out helping other ungrateful…." 

Lauren realized the words were aimed at, Jamaal, the student whose brother had stabbed Harry and decided to stop whoever it was before the matter became more heated. She interjected in a rather angry voice, "Hey, knock it off, this not the place for a sparring match. Leave it to the court to decide whose fault it is."

She took a better look at the man. He was quite handsome, tall and slender, with short dark hair and dark eyes to match. Judging by his looks and actions, he was probably one of Harry's close relatives. 

"These people are worthless and thankless. Believe me I know, I worked my ass off for five years in an ER keeping them alive, for no good reason. I thought I could make a difference. Alan Birch, great lawyer, they shot him for $2, and now he is a pile of ash in his former boss's backyard. The kid who did it gets off, because he had a hard life, he deserved a second chance. A year later he gets himself shot. They thought I purposely did him in the ER, by not leaving a clamp in. I almost lost my medical license because of it. And now Harry. He thought he would make a difference, and decided to work with Them. Way to thank him." He said, looking at Jamaal.

The man seemed to be very bothered by all that was happening. However; Jamaal was going through too much right now to have to deal comments like that. She needed to get this man away from him. A nurse approached them all before he could go on complaining. 

"Late night visiting hours were over, 15 minutes ago, its time to go," she told them all. The man quickly reacted, 

"What the fuck! Doesn't this hospital have a rule that family members get to stay." 

"I'm sorry, but our visiting hours are from 8:00-11:00."

Lauren approached him, trying to quickly lead him away from the room, before he could complain anymore, "I'm sure he'll be okay." 

While they were in the elevator on their way out, Lauren introduced herself, "I'm Lauren Davis, Harry's ex girlfriend, I work with him over at Winslow High." She had the feeling that Harry probably had not told him about her. He then extended his hand for a handshake "Daniel Nyland, nice to meet you."

She then asked him, "I take it you are a family member." 

He replied, "foster brother." 

"Oh," she replied with a rather surprised look on her face. She always suspected Harry had messed up childhood, but she hadn't known that he'd grown up in the system.

Danny responded to the look on her face, "I'm guessing you don't know much about his past"

"No, he never really told me very much about himself." she replied, keeping it at that. A dull silence followed, then the elevator door opened. 

As soon as they walked out of the elevator, Danny approached her once again. "I'm sorry, I'm not really a racist ass. It's just that I've seen too much happen because of these types of problems." He glanced down, looking tired and depressed, "I've been here all day, this hospital is worse than the one where I used to work! I had to prevent two medical students from using him as an IV pin cushion, and one intern from giving him the wrong dose of an antibiotic" 

"Don't worry, he'll be fine" Lauren said, trying to re-assure him as they walked out of the hospital heading for their respective cars. She wasn't really sure if he would be fine, but she didn't have anything else to say. 

Before she could get to her car, Danny made a suggestion out of the blue. "Care to hear me vent over a drink." He pointed to a TGI Friday's across the street. 

Lauren ordinarily wouldn't say yes to something like that, but Danny certainly could use some company. 

They entered the bar and sat down at a table. It was just like any other TGI Fridays, darkened with loud music playing in the background. Needing something to get her mind off all that was going on, she ordered a Bailey's Danny glanced over the menu, which seemed to contain an endless amount of frilly frozen drinks, and asked her "So you are his ex?"

" Ex girlfriend. Yes, I dated him last year for about 6 months. But we haven't seen much of each other this year." 

"I know what you mean." He responded, then changed the subject, "Can't they put normal drinks on the menu, I mean frozen oreo margarita."

Lauren was so focused on her conversation with Danny that she didn't notice the waitress who served her drink until she glanced up to thank her. She was momentarily startled to realize that she knew the young woman. Knew her rather well. It was Dana Poole. The student who had kissed Harry last year. And who, very recently, had dated him. Needless to say she was not overly fond of the little coquette.

"Miss Davis, what are you doing here." 

"Didn't you hear what happened?" 

"No?"

"Two days ago, Harry was stabbed, by Jamaal Anderson's brother."

A look of shock came over Dana's face. "Where was he stabbed, is he going to be okay." She asked, concerned, even though she had not attempted to contact him since his surprise party two weeks ago, when he refused to acknowledge their relationship to his co-workers. He made up a story that they only 'bumped into' each other for coffee. It was their third date! 

Danny responded to the attractive young woman, who he knew from somewhere, but couldn't place. 

"Who knows. He's comatose. His guts are being held together by the fine embroidery of the folks across the street at East Boston Community Hospital, a hospital well known for being the country's worst. Hopefully he'll be fine, if they don't end up confusing him for a women who has just given birth." 

Dana gave Danny a rather shocked look and hugged Lauren, "I hope everything turns out okay." She steered clear of the man Lauren was with. She had seen him too many times at the 'gentleman's club' she worked in last year. 

Danny ordered a 'key lime' margarita, and then took a sip of Lauren's already ordered Bailey's. He looked down and said. 

"I've known Harry since he was 8 years old. I was 18 at the time, and was scheduled to attend Yale in 6 months. My foster parents, Abigail and William decided to take in another kid. He was just as cute as I was at that age, and had a similar history to my own; his mom had recently died from an overdose, and his dad was deemed an unfit parent. 

"When he first moved in, we hit it off pretty well. It was actually kinda nice having a little brother. I made him do things like clean my room, and organize my vinyl collection. I found it fun playing 'homework police.' 

"Throughout my first two years college, I would always come back to visit him. He was happy living with them. Abigail was a sketch artist for the local museum, and William was a psychiatrist. Really nice people, great parents. However; during my junior year in college, William was diagnosed with lymphoma. At first they thought they could cure him. He went through all sorts of chemo therapy and stuff, sick every night. Fortunately they were able to get him into remission, or so they thought.

"The summer after I graduated college, he had a relapse. He refused any kind of treatment, no chemo, no radiation, nothing that might make him sick. He passed away just as I was entering medical school. .Abigail went into a deep depression after losing her husband, and it was determined that she was no longer fit to take care of 12 year old Harry.

"At that point, Harry's real dad had supposedly cleaned himself up, and was now at least illegal drug free. So some moron over at the department of child services, decided that it would be okay to send him back to live with his father. It was the worst mistake possible.

"I tried as hard as I could to intervene, to keep Harry on track. But I couldn't do enough on my own. I had so many other things to deal with at that point, the death of my foster father, and my first year of med school. Because of my foster father's extensive medical bills, I was forced to pay my way through, by working at a barbecue joint. During all this I could do little more than watch as Harry began to fuck himself up. When I could, I took him to baseball games, concerts and movies, but eventually he refused to go with me to anything. I tried to enlist my foster mother, in getting through to him, but by that point things had gotten so bad that he was beyond her control.

"By the time he was 14, he was a full blown crack addict, and had pretty much dropped out of school. It was horribly frustrating to see such a bright kid, with more potential than even me, wasting his life away. I was eventually able to force him into rehab one summer. I then decided to sacrifice some of my med school grades to see him every day. I needed to make sure he stayed on the right track."

At that point, the busboy came and delivered Danny's neon green margarita. Lauren suddenly realized some of the reasons why Harry was the way he was. Danny continued his story."

"Harry stayed clean for the next two years, but things weren't easy. His dad had progressively gotten worse, losing job after job, because he would either come in stoned or drunk. He ended up in all sorts of trouble with loan sharks, because of debts from loans to pay for his cocaine. Harry had a wonderful life, wondering if someone would break into his house in the middle of the night, threatening to kill the two of them. Eventually his dad got desperate to the point of holding up liquor stores. One night, he held up one while so high that he didn't even realize there were two cops right outside."

"So that is how he ended up in jail, doing 20 years for armed robbery?" asked Lauren. 

"Yes," Danny quietly responded. "It was too much for Harry who was 16 at the time. Not wanting to live in another foster home, he ended up taking to the streets, getting back into drugs and everything else. This time I ended up losing contact with him for about 6 months."

"One day, during my first year of residency, a street kid was wheeled into the emergency room, half dead after OD'ing on god knows what. 

"It took me a few minutes to realize that it was Harry. I could barely recognize him. His hair was dyed a horrid green shade, and had all kinds of tattoos and piercings everywhere. They were able to pump his stomach, and get at least some of the junk out of him, but the rest he digested. I always suspected that it was some kind of suicide attempt. Fortunately he got lucky and survived. Not wanting something like that to happen again, I made him an offer. He could live with me, if he cleaned himself up, went back to school, got good grades, and helped keep my place clean. I also got him a job, working at the rib joint that put me through medical school. The arrangement worked pretty well for two years, until he went to college, and I got a job as a trauma surgeon in Chicago." 

"Oh" Lauren replied, almost done with her drink, and thinking about ordering a new one.


	2. Chapter2

Lauren felt guilty being out on what was turning into a date with this man. The past few weeks were extremely hectic. She had been seeing one of her superiors at work, vice principal, Scott Guber. 

At Harry's surprise party, she and Scott had bonded over a conversation that had strangely enough, taken place in the bathroom. The next week he asked her out as his date to the prom. He had been so nervous that he passed out when she said yes. Scott had been so friendly recently, and was showing her a side of himself he had never shown anyone before. 

But despite that, Lauren had mixed feelings about the budding relationship. While she enjoyed spending time with Scott, she wasn't sure whether or not she could truly love him. For one thing, he was about 20 her senior. He also didn't have much of a sense of humor or rebelliousness. She preferred sarcastic men, who could make her laugh at the little things in life. However, she couldn't think of a good way to break things off with him. Last year, after the fiasco about the philharmonic and his unwanted advances, she'd felt uncomfortable being around him. And although they had managed to work through that she knew another such incident might do irreparable damage to their working relationship. She knew how much it would hurt if she were to reject him. 

Danny went on to ask her, "So what do you teach?" He then ordered a second drink, a Jack Daniel's. There was something about the quaint, blond, skinny woman that he liked even though she wasn't the type of woman he ordinarily dated.

She replied "European and American history."

"Same type of students as Harry?" 

"No, I tried teaching in the dungeon about three years ago and quickly realized I didn't have the patience for it."

"And what about Harry? I remember that he was really into the whole geology and paleontology thing. At one point, he had a huge Indiana Jones complex. He spent his college and graduate school years hell bent on digging up dinosaur bones, and learning about all sorts of rocks and things. However last I heard, he was teaching ghetto kids." The waitress came and delivered him a Jack Daniels. 

He didn't feel like mentioning the last time he'd seen Harry. He'd been making rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital. Harry had just spent the last day begging a boy in the end stages of leukemia to get additional treatment, and to go on sending out college applications, despite the fact that the there was no way he was going to survive. Somehow he'd thought that if the kid had a "will to live" he'd actually have a chance. But the boy had ended up dying and Harry had been extremely distraught over it; the second kid he had lost in a year. Danny remembered the long conversation he had with Harry that day. He had told him that if he is at the point where he was putting his own needs, before those of the students, he was useless. Harry had seemed so depressed and worn out, a tired shell of his former self. 

Lauren went on to continue the conversation they had been having. "Harry used to teach geology but then last year he was recruited to teach an individual development class. It's a program for students who are underachievers, or have been held back for some other reason. The classroom where he taught was commonly known as the 'dungeon' because it's in the basement. He bonded with them like no other teacher, so they convinced him to teach there full time this year. 

"Harry has done a lot for the school. He started a suicide club, for students thinking of taking their lives, and a support club for parents. About three months ago, he had his 'dungeon kids' debate the school debate team. They actually did pretty well." After Lauren had ended her story she asked Danny "By the way, what kind of a doctor are you?"

"A pretty good one" Danny sarcastically replied. "Actually I'm a general practitioner. I work in a private practice up in Welsley, with two former colleagues of mine, Billy and Diane Kronk. The practice has been doing well since we started it two years ago. After they decided to stop working in Chicago, Diane convinced me to join her and her husband her in Boston. I had not been practicing medicine for two years."

"Why did you stop practicing?" she innocently asked, suspecting that it might have had something to do with what he had mentioned earlier in the hospital about his friend getting shot. 

Danny was a bit surprised by the intrusiveness of her question. He usually didn't like people asking him about such personal matters, but he was too tired to expend the energy to it would take to avoid such a forthright question. He took a slow gulp of his drink and began to uncomfortably answer,

"For about five years I worked in the trauma department at Chicago Hope. I was chief of trauma, and then demoted to trauma surgeon. It was a big fancy hospital, but located in one of Chicago's worst areas. Every day we would get in all sorts of casualties, gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, stabbings.

"About six years ago, a friend of mine, Alan Birch was shot, by a group of gang kids. He was the hospital council, one of the best lawyers I have ever seen. Alan had done a lot for Chicago Hope, keeping our asses out of trouble in the face of doctors who were going off the deep end, and unimaginable mishaps in the operating room. The kids took the $2 in his wallet and left him to die. He was operated on by two of the nation's top cardiologists. They thought he could pull though. In fact, he woke up at one point, and started talking to us. But there was a complication, he threw embolism, and ended up dying on the operating table. It was tragic. He had recently adopted a little girl, and his life was finally getting on track." 

A depressed look once again came over Danny's face, he began to speak slowly. He sighted and went on to say.

"It happened right in front of a close friend, Diane Grad, who was traumatized by the event. She watched them shoot him with a .32mm automatic weapon. It took awhile to get over it.

"For the next year and a half, I pretended that I wasn't bothered by the whole thing. I ended up making some pretty stupid decisions. I slept with a patient's wife, for which I was demoted from my position as chief of trauma. Later on I that year, I had a near fatal car accident, and came close to death. At that point I really should have gone on to something else. I stopped caring about my patients. 

"One day a kid was rolled into the ER. He was in pretty bad shape, his aorta torn up by a .32 millimeter. He was one of the gang kids involved in the Alan Birch shooting. He died, despite our best efforts to save him.

"Because they knew I was I friend of Alan Birch, and my attitude throughout the whole ordeal, telling them things 'lets just let him go,' they accused me of leaving a clamp off the kid's artery on purpose. I had no way of defending myself, so I was fired from Chicago Hope and taken to trial. I came pretty close to losing my medical license, but didn't. After that whole ordeal, I didn't have the energy to challenge the loss of my position at Chicago Hope

"I decided to 'find myself' and tried to become a priest."

Danny giggled slightly after he told Lauren the story. He couldn't believe he was telling all this to a woman he just met. 

"You joined the priesthood?" asked Lauren, curious to hear the rest of the story. She could now see why he was so angry about all that was going on. Whey he felt such animosity towards Jamaal. 

"I did it for a year and a half but then realized it wasn't for me. That's when Billy and Diane Kronk ended up jobless after a nutty cardiologist bought and took over Chicago Hope, started their practice in Welsley and convinced me to join them. It was a far cry from anything they had done at Chicago Hope. For the first time in awhile they were able to have a life, and spend quality time together with their little girl."

Danny quickly changed the subject, and asked Lauren, "I hope you don't mind if I smoke" he said lighting up a cigarette "Harry forced me to give them up, calling me a hypocrite for smoking while he couldn't drink or drug. But when things get bad there is nothing like a good cigarette." 

Lauren, not really being bothered by his smoking, asked, "Can I have one?"

He gave her one and lit it for her. She took her first puff in ten years. The taste reminded her of the days when she'd smoked to eliminate hunger pangs.

Danny went on, "I kept warning him, that if he continued to get involved with gang kids he was preparing himself for no good. But he wouldn't listen. Instead he dismissed me as a ' rich racist fuck,' who 'couldn't get past something that happened five years ago.' Dammit, if he only listened to me, if he only was willing to listen to someone, he would have realized that those kinds of kids are lost causes. They take people's lives, and don't give anything back. But instead he decided to go all out for them. He gave up a potential career working for the US geological survey to teach in one of the area's hardest neighborhoods, now look. What a waste of life."

"Its not your fault." Lauren said re-assuring him, by putting her hand on his. "He was the one who decided to work with them. He has helped so many students. There is nothing you or me could have done to change things."

Dana Poole came with the check, which Danny promptly paid. They then headed to their respective cars, in the hospital parking lot across the street. "Thanks for sitting and listening to me vent" he said and then gave her a tight embrace. 

As she walked through the parking lot, Lauren wondered if she would ever see him again. She attempted to start her car, but instead of the sound of the engine coming to life she heard only an aggravating clicking sound. "Damm," she said, hating the delay that this was going to cause her and being stranded in the middle of the night in an unsafe neighborhood. It was her second lemon in a year. Repairing it, or getting a new car would cost her a fortune. She tried to start it again, nothing. She took out her cell phone, to call AAA. She turned it on and heard an annoying beeping noise indicating that the battery was dead. She got out to find a phone to call AAA. Just as she had gotten out , a large silver Mercedes pulled up behind her. It actually startled her a tiny bit. Danny pulled down the window. "Car trouble?"

"Yes" replied Lauren" 

"Just leave it, I'll give you a ride home." 

Lauren hesitated not sure she wanted to abandon her car in that neighborhood. "I have to be at work by 7:00 tomorrow, if I'm not there." 

Danny persisted "Don't worry, just get in."

Lauren got into his car. She figured that if her were to be stolen, she would probably get enough insurance money to replace it with something better. They drove to her apartment building. Thankful for the ride, she decided to invite him up to her apartment.

"Care to come in for some coffee or a bite to eat" she asked? 

"What the hell, I'm already here" 

"Nice place" he commented a few minutes looking around her apartment. "You share it with anyone?"

"No, she responded." She then went into the kitchen, and began making coffee. 

Danny sat down on the couch, tired from the long day. He had driven up to the South Side as soon as he head heard the news. He didn't imagine how serious things were. While they were able to stop most of Harry's bleeding during the surgery, afterwards he had gone into cardiac arrest. Fortunately the trauma surgeon was a former colleague of Danny's so he was determined to bring Harry back, and keep him alive. Harry was now in what was said to be a "deep coma," failing to respond to any kind of stimulus. 

From what Danny had seen, usually with patients in that situation, there was a 50/50 chance of them surviving. But "survive" didn't actually mean normal semblance of life. The patients, if they woke up, almost always ended up with a certain amount of brain damage, having to go through extensive rehabilitation, involving re-learning things like walking and basic hygiene. 

However; there was still a chance. Danny remembered his car accident five years ago. He was hurt pretty badly, sustaining almost fatal injuries to his brain and spine, in addition to an internal injury and a fractured thigh bone. Jack McNeil, his, orthopedist was worried that he would never walk again, because 3 bones in his spine were broken. Aaron Shutt, his neurosurgeon, was concerned about devastating neurological damage.

He was kept in a drug induced coma for a week, while they waited for the swelling in his brain to go down. Afterwards he was confined to bed rest for two weeks. It took about three days for his "family" to find out. Abby, his foster mother, flew out as soon as possible, and stayed with him, while he was in the hospital, and then for a week in his apartment, helping to take care of him. Harry who took some time off before spring vacation that year, was also there, telling him jokes when he was comatose, then attempting to keep him entertained while he was in the hospital and then home in bed. He would bring him all sorts of goodies from food, to "entertaining" magazines and movies. 

Lauren emerged from the kitchen two mugs of decaffeinated coffee. She remembered her last real conversation with Harry. Three months ago, he was having his students debate Scott Guber's debate team. She had the suspicion that there was more to it than just wanting to have his students succeed. Harry seemed to be using the students to "prove" himself as a teacher. She mentioned this to Harry, who shrugged it off. He was working those students way too hard. 

As she sat down tears began to well up in her eyes, "I should have done more with him this year. What kind of a friend was I being." 

Danny replied "Its okay," then put his arm around her. She leaned on his shoulder, and he naturally began stroking her blond hair. His gentle touch was relaxing her, she desperately needed to be held and caressed. She felt a connection with him, that she rarely felt with other men. Before she knew it, they were kissing passionately. 

He then slowly began unbuttoning her blouse, and then her bra. While she would normally discourage a man she just met from doing something like that, it felt so relieving to be comforted after all that was happening. It was helping to get her mind off all of the day's painful events. 

Lauren slowly moved off the couch and they headed for her bedroom. When they entered, they lied down on her bed. She grabbed a condom out of her dresser drawer _and things too racy for a PG 13 fic began. _ A few minutes later, she heard him utter something loudly. 

"The condom broke." 

Lauren suddenly became nervous agitated. For years she had been advocating her students about the merits of safe sex. She had heard about things breaking, but never imagined that anything like that could happen to her. Danny re-assured her, confidant that nothing would go wrong. 

"Don't worry, everything will be fine. Let's get some sleep. I'll take you to my office first thing tomorrow, where we have pills for dealing with these types of situations. You can't get pregnant if you take it within 72 hours. I have also been tested for anything and everything, so don't worry about catching anything."

Lauren obliged, worried if he was telling the truth. She couldn't believe what she had just done this, she had never done anything like that before. They turned off the lights, and attempted to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day. 


	3. Chapter3

Lauren felt exhausted as she walked into Danny's office. It was 6:00 AM on a hazy, cloudy morning. She'd barely slept the night beforehand, because of all that was going on. As they walked down the hall, a woman with short blonde hair greeted Danny, in a rather concerned manner. 

"Why are you here at this hour? I thought you had taken the day off. How is Harry doing?"

Danny responded, rather uncomfortably,

"He is still critical, but he survived a second night." He was not expecting to see Diane Grad at such an early hour. She usually didn't come in until she had dropped her four year daughter Emily off at preschool. 

"I hope everything will be okay" she told him, and gave him a friendly embrace. Danny quickly took Lauren into the back of the office. He was considering

having Diane handle this because she was female but decided not to. He felt vaguely embarrassed about what he had done. Diane had been there, five years ago, when he was fired for having an affair with a paraplegic potential hospital benefactor's wife. Ever since that incident, he liked to keep his relationships to himself, until they reached a certain level. 

Danny escorted Lauren to a room, where they always kept supplies for situations like this one. He brought her a set what looked like birth control pills, a pack of crackers, and a glass water. He then told her rather nonchalantly, 

"Take 5 of these now, and another 5, 12 hours from now. They reduce the risk of pregnancy by about 80 percent. You'll probably want to eat something before taking them, in order to avoid nausea. " 

Lauren took the pills with some sense of relief. She wasn't sure how she should be handling herself. She had never been in a situation like this before, and wondered whether or not she should have seen her own gynecologist. 

Danny went on to mention "I can also insert an IUD which would be most effective, it's supposed to reduce the risk of pregnancy by up to 95%." 

"No thanks" replied Lauren. She knew that would be the best solution to avoid a possible pregnancy, but she wasn't comfortable having him put one in.

She asked, "Is there any way that you could take me back there, to the hospital. I should get my car." 

Danny obliged as they silently drove back to the hospital in Boston. He was curious to know how Harry was doing. He was well aware that if something happened, that one of the doctors, nurses, or Harry's boss, Steven would have called him on his cell. He felt guilty, leaving Harry alone, not being there for him. 

He wondered what he should do the next time he saw his ex fiancé, Ronnie. He had not seen or heard from her, ever since she called off their marriage, about 13 years ago. At the hospital he had been trying to avoid her, attempting not to be in the room, when she was around. While now would probably be a good time for reconciliation, he really couldn't think of a way to face her. 

They arrived back at the hospital. Danny parked, and they exited his car. He handed her his cell phone, and told her "You can borrow this to call AAA, I'll be inside, checking on Harry." 

Lauren felt somewhat abandoned, being left alone in a parking lot, after all she has been through. She picked up his phone, and dialed AAA. At this point, all she wanted to do was get to work, so she didn't have to worry about anything else. 

Danny walked towards the hospital room. When he arrived, he noticed that Harry's two bosses, Steven and Scott, were having some kind of discussion, and Steven, the large African American one, looked overly emotional. Feeling uncomfortable intruding on the conversation, he decided to check on Lauren. He walked back to the parking lot. 

Lauren had just gotten off the phone with AAA, who said they would be coming to repair her car. She hung up the phone, then was temporarily startled when someone snuck up behind her. 

"You call them yet?"

Relieved to find out that it was Danny she replied,

"Yeah, they should be here in about a half an hour. So much for coming into work on time." She then asked, "How is Harry?"

"I didn't get much of a look. Your two bosses were in there, and I didn't feel like intruding" 

"I understand," replied Lauren. 

Because it was cold, and damp outside, Lauren decided to wait for AAA in the in hospital entrance, Danny seemed to follow her. As they entered, they heard something over the loudspeaker, "Code Blue, Room 532." 

Lauren shrieked "Oh god, I think that's Harry." 

They ran, and attempted get on the elevator to the fifth floor, but both elevators were occupied. One crowded by a group of doctors taking a woman into surgery, and the other was on its way up, and wouldn't be down for at least three minutes. Giving up on the elevators, Danny nervously yelled, "Where the fuck are the stairs." 

One minute later, they were able to find the staircase. They quickly made their way up. By the time they had arrived at Harry's room, they saw him flat-lining and a crash team attempting to save his life. Danny insisted on going in, but they wouldn't let him. They could do nothing but sit back and watch as the doctors made an incision in Harry's back, spread his ribs, then massaged his heart. 

Danny knew that once a patient was at the point where that desperate step was needed, that the chances of survival were pretty small. Considering that this was Harry's second arrest, he began to prepare for the worst. He and Lauren held onto each other, hoping for a miracle. 

Through the glass, they heard one of the doctors say "normal sinus rhythm." The miracle they were hoping for had happened. 

Lauren and Danny sat for two minutes, relieved that they were able to bring him back. Danny headed into the room, to watch what was going on. From this point on, he wasn't going to leave him alone. There was a high likelihood that something would happen again. 

Lauren noticed Scott Guber looking at the two of them. Knowing how he felt about her, she didn't feel comfortable being around him and Danny at the same time. She took Danny aside, "I have to go now, AAA should be coming shortly, and I need to meet them."

"Do you want me to come with you" he asked, hoping that she wouldn't' oblige. He wanted to stay with Harry. 

"No thanks, I'll be fine," replied Lauren, giving him a brief embrace. She felt guilty about leaving, in that situation, but didn't feel comfortable explaining all that was going on, to Scott Guber. 

"I'll probably be here the rest of the day," he told her. He didn't want her to leave. While he hated to admit it, he really didn't want to go through this alone. He had been through too much alone already. He took a pen out of his jacket pocket, grabbed her hand, "Here is my cell number, write it down on paper when you have the chance." 

Lauren smiled, and ran towards the elevator. 


End file.
